Wild Garlic
Allium ursinum
Broad, spear-shaped leaves rise singly from the woodland floor on long stalks, each one smelling strongly of garlic when crushed. From April, loose domed heads of small white six-petalled flowers open above them. Leaves, buds and flowers are all eaten raw or cooked, most often pounded into a pesto or stirred through soup, and the whole plant dies back by midsummer.
Carpets damp, shaded broadleaf woodland, particularly on long-established woodland soils under beech, ash and hazel, and follows shaded stream banks and hedge bottoms. Widespread across Britain and Ireland, thinner in the far north and on dry or very acid ground.
Edible raw and cooked, though a lot of raw leaf can upset the stomach. Lords-and-Ladies (Arum maculatum) grows in the same woodland: its leaves are glossy and arrow-shaped, with a lobe either side of the stalk, and never smell of garlic. Autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale) has thick, ribbed leaves rising stalkless in a tight bunch, again with no garlic smell when crushed. Crush a leaf from each new handful rather than trusting already garlicky fingers, and avoid heavily dog-walked patches.
Always use more than one reference to confirm a plant. You are responsible for what you choose to forage.
Leaves
Each leaf rises on its own long stalk straight from the soil, the blade elliptical to spear-shaped, untoothed, matt rather than glossy, with veins running the length of it. Leaves arranged in pairs or spirals up a leafy stem belong to something else.
Smell
Crushing a leaf between finger and thumb releases a strong garlic-onion smell. A leaf with no smell at all is not wild garlic, whatever it looks like; test one leaf from every new handful, because garlic already on your fingers will fool you.
Flowers
Small white flowers of six narrow, pointed petals, carried twenty or so together in a loose flat-topped head on a smooth stem with two or three faint angles. The flowers face outwards and upwards rather than hanging as nodding bells.
Growth habit
Grows in dense colonies that green over whole woodland floors before the canopy closes, then dies back completely by midsummer, leaving no trace above ground. Picking leaves leaves the colony intact; the small narrow white bulb sits shallowly and there is no reason to dig it.
Updated 2026-08-08T12:03:12.925Z · Part of the shared Foragers Log catalogue · Herb